


Carpe Noctem

by raging_storm



Series: Three [1]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Heathens (Music Video), Alternate Universe - Prison, Anxiety, Character Death, Crying, Dark, Horror, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Murder, Sad Ending, Self-Acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 18:04:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14774525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raging_storm/pseuds/raging_storm
Summary: Tyler is a prisoner condemned to death.He wants this. He wants it so bad.





	Carpe Noctem

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will deal with very heavy subject matter. I did some research on the topics seen in this story, and they were disturbing. Some of them actually gave me a little anxiety. Don't read if you're prone to that sort of thing.
> 
> I will not tag certain things to avoid spoilers.

He knew this day would come. It's been days, weeks, months, and his time has run out. He supposes he's lucky that it hasn't been sooner, given all the incriminating evidence tied to his name, but reality hits him harder than he expected it to. The punishment of murder, of killing his best friend, is catching up to him.

For months, nameless attorneys fought for every breath he took while he waited in anxiety behind bars. 

Four hundred seventy-two days passed before the prison warden himself followed by a man in an immaculate suit came down to his cell to deliver the news. A week, they say. He has a week.

The Suit is comfortable talking to him. A calm face and a professional yet detached tone says he's done this before. In a way, the man on the outside is just the same as the one behind bars. He too is a murderer. Only this time, society will call it justice rather than a cold-blooded killing.

The warden says nothing, just tugs at a tie that has become a noose, face grim. He leaves the legalese and "right of passage" to the Suit, all while looking down at the ground, because why would you look into the eyes of the damned? It's his job, but he's perfectly fine with leaving it to the Suit.

A week, he has a week.

The two men leave, telling him that he will be moved shortly. 

 

He cries in his cell, curled up in a ball, and thinks about all his favorite memories. The time where he and his best friend, the same friend he'd murdered, rode bikes for the very first time. When he started going out with his first girlfriend and they went to an ice rink for their first date. When he found out he'd been accepted into Otterbein University on a basketball scholarship. He thinks of his family, two brothers and a sister that he left back home.

He wonders if his mother is crying for him even now, because she surely received the news. He wonders if his father is disappointed or angry with him. That would be the worst, the anger in his last few days. The shame, self-hatred and disgust that would follow him to the grave. Everything hurts, and everything is so cold.

And so he cries, and wonders how his life could have taken such a dark turn. He wonders where a faithful church-going boy with a bright future in basketball turned into a murderer.

 

They move him into another area of the prison. Two guards escort him there, but ever so gently. They've been instructed to treat him with patience, even kindness, because of his plight. It's so strange how they call for your blood up until the moment they know justice is being served hot. Then they feel nothing but pity.

He hates the pity. It makes him feel weak. It makes him feel dirty.

The guards put him in a bigger, but better protected cell. It's maximum security, with even more cameras and guards. Around him are other prisoners. Some sob, some are talking to themselves, others sit quietly in denial. They're all in the same boat as he is. He wonders what category he's in. Is he in denial? Should he be crying again? Escape is out of the question. Not with all this security.

The cell door slams shut with finality, and he settles for crying some more as the last candle of hope is snuffed out.

 

Four days left.

He sits and stares at a wall, doing nothing. Memories click and fade in his tattered mind. He tries to distract himself from the impending horror that sits in the forefront of his brain like an elephant in the room. He thinks of happy things, he recites Bible verses from a childhood millions of years ago, he sings songs until his throat hurts and other prisoner are screaming at him to just  _be quiet already._

 _I thought depression was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. It was the darkest point of my life. I almost killed myself. I had a gun in my hand. But my friend, he was there and he saved me. He_ saved  _me._

He won't say his friend's name. Not now. Not now. If he says it, he'll fall apart.

 

Three days.

The guards open the cell door and drag him out of bed, where he's burrowed under layers of blankets. 

"Come," they say. They don't speak. They try not to speak. Too many words will generate a compassion they should not feel. Not in this job. "Your family's here," they say.

They bring him to a familiar place. It's towards the edge of the prison campus, near the visitors complex. The warden argued that it would give the prisoners hope, being so close to the main gate.

"It's needlessly cruel to give them false hope," he said.

No prisoner would disagree with that.

The fresh air is a relief, and he breathes it in. Five years ago he would have taken it for granted. Now he takes in the sun and the air with a gratitude he had never felt before.

The building is called the "death house" by prisoners. Similar to the visitors complex, it's a place where prisoners can spend hours of a day with their families. It's set up like a normal room, with neutral and calming colors on the walls, comfortable chairs and tables. The prison has seen people go in there before. They always come out, so the name never made sense. Nobody actually died in there. 

Some families bring things, while others don't. When the prisoner enters the building, his family is there. His mother purses her lips and embraces him while the guards step outside, locking the door behind him and take up attentive positions right where they can disarm any possible escape attempts. His father is quiet, trembling as he clutches a chair like it's him dying. Maybe some family members go into cardiac arrest. Maybe that's why it's called the death house. The thought almost makes the prisoner laugh. A hysterical laugh with no hilarity involved.

The siblings are not there, though, and that hurts the most. Maybe it would be too traumatic for them, or maybe they don't care. The prisoner taught his oldest sibling to play basketball, taught his sister piano. He sat by the side of his other brother when he needed help with his homework, and tried to be a good older brother. The fact that they don't care enough about him to see him one last time makes his heart ache.

"They wrote letters," his mother says, by way of explanation. "I'm so sorry they didn't come. I tried to ask them, but...but I couldn't force them." The prisoner looks downcast as his mother hands him three letters with a shaking hand. 

"Please don't take this the wrong way. They wanted to be here, I promise. But they couldn't see you like this...they couldn't comprehend what was happening..."

They couldn't comprehend what was happening? Funny. It's not them in his place.

The father rubs his eyes viciously. "Son," he chokes out. "Just know that despite what's happened, I still love you.  _We still love you._ And by god, I will stand up and tell the world I'm proud to have you as my flesh and blood." Unable to speak anymore, he turns away, tears springing to his eyes.

The prisoner clenches his fists as his mother sits down. Turns out she did bring something. They don't have to talk about his friend now, which is a relief. Josh, with his bright red hair and smile. Funny how quickly red hair turned to blood, staining the blade of a kitchen knife.

"They let me bring a photo album," she says quietly. 

They spend the next couple of hours looking through the album. It's amazing how years and years of one's life can be compiled into one leather-bound book,  but the Joseph family did it. Pictures of birthdays, holidays, Christmases. He thought it would make him sad, but even as the guards tell them they have ten minutes left, he's laughing with an uplifted spirit. In the beginning he didn't want to face his family, but now he's glad he did. It gives him closure. 

Parting time comes too soon. Laughter ends, the book goes away, guards separate them. And finally the prisoner is reminded that he is not in touch with society anymore. His parents will leave one way, free citizens, while he is led back to his cell to be locked away.

Before they leave, the mother gives him a parting gift. "After they searched your room, I found song lyrics. They analyzed them, but found nothing incriminating, so they gave them back to me. I thought you would want to have them."

And as much as he wants to burn them right out of her hand, he takes them and clutches them to his chest, refusing to let them go even as he's put back into his cell.

 

 

Two days.

The warden shows up personally and awkwardly asks him what he wants for his special meal. It's a euphemism given by the United States to make it seem more humane, but that just makes it even more hideous. Like calling a rape a "violation of self" or something equally stupid. Like calling death anything other than what it is. He hates spin doctors. Josh hated them too.

"Taco Bell," he tells the warden. "I- I just want a Chalupa Supreme. And a Coke."

The warden does him one better. He orders the prisoner  _three_ Chalupas and a liter of Coke, and orders a folding table brought out. There he sits with the prisoner, talking of the weather, sports, anything to keep his mind off of the days ahead. Nothing in future-speak, though. Nothing like, "I hear a great band is playing in a week!" The warden knows how to navigate this awkward field.

The prisoner knows he should be mad. He wants to be mad. At the judge for condemning him, at the correctional officers for all the times they've yelled at him, at his parents for abandoning him even though it wasn't their fault. Even though they could do  _nothing._ At the warden for going along with this, at the world for turning the other way. But at himself most of all. He has nobody to blame but himself.

The meal ends all too soon. In the end, he's more at peace than when he started the meal. That's when he realizes the meal is not just food, it's a way for him to get his life in order. The warden is a touchstone to humanity, and he takes the proffered olive branch. 

He shakes the warden's hand and wishes him well, and the warden shakes it right back.

 

One day left. The meal sits badly in his stomach. He vomits into the toilet, alternating between that and punching the wall. His knuckles are a bloody mess, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care. He deserves it. 

He spends the rest of the day in bed, torturing himself with thoughts of Josh. Red hair. He had red hair. And the biggest heart in the world.

 

The day has come.

The sky is grey outside, but he doesn't know this. He never will. He's not going to see the sky again.

His stomach roils as the guards take him from his cell for the last time. The cell was smelly and cold, but he doesn't have to worry. He's never going back.

They take him to a room with a table. Straps dangle down from either side, and a metal tray with _things_ on it lays in wait. On one side of the room, a one-way mirror rests. He hopes no one's watching. He couldn't bear it if his life was a spectacle.

They strap him down. He doesn't resist. His heart is pounding, pounding, pounding. The straps don't chafe. They're padded on the insides, as comfortable as can be.

There's a man present. He wears a white lab coat and rubber gloves. 

"Try to calm down," another person instructs, somewhere near his left ear. He can't see them, but he must be panicking at this point. He never even saw other people come into the room. They set up a heart monitor and attach wires to his veins. The beeping is steady and quick, betraying his fear.  _Beep. Beep. Beep._

The warden is there, his eyes full of sorrow. He's learned to eliminate feelings mostly, but he's still human.

"Please, hold my hand," the prisoner says. This the warden does, and the prisoner holds the hand as if it were a lifeline.

"I'm scared," the prisoner says.

"Is it painful?" the prisoner says.

"Make it quick," the prisoner says.

And the heart monitor beeps.

"First we'll do 1 gram of sodium thiopental," the man in the scrub says. "It'll place you into a relaxed coma. After that, it's 45 milligrams of alcurionium chloride. That will paralyze your lungs. Finally, pancuronium bromide. That will put you into cardiac arrest. It is not painful."

The prisoner grips the warden's hand tightly. He's done bad things in his life, but he doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve this.

"I have last words," he says, as the scrub picks up a syringe and advances on him.

"Go ahead," the warden says gently.

The prisoner tries to steady his breathing, knowing these will be his last breaths.

"I've done bad things. I know it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. God, forgive me. I'm sorry."

The warden squeezes his hand. "I forgive you," he says, against all protocol.

Still, the heart monitor beeps strong and steady.

The prisoner relaxes. He closes his eyes. "I don't want to be awake anymore," he says. "I want to sleep. I'm tired. I'm so tired." 

The man in the scrub takes this as his cue. He moves forward and prepares the injection.

In a minute it's done. 

The prisoner sighs and his muscles relax as he slips into an induced coma. His grip never slackens, though, and despite him being under the warden continues to hold his hand, silently agreeing to be the last link to this world as the prisoner travels into the next.

The next injection. The executioner's hands don't shake. Like the Suit from a week ago, he's done this before. It's just a job to him.

The heart monitor has slowed down now, but it is still steady, still constant.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

The final injection is lethal. Going into the same vein, the fact-acting medicine does it's job quickly, traveling up to the prisoner's heart.

The prisoner's lips begin to turn blue. He doesn't convulse, doesn't gasp out a last breath, doesn't do anything. His death is anticlimactic and almost, almost normal.

The heart monitor is not beeping now, its silence final.

The warden lets go of the prisoner's now-limp hand, stepping as far back from the body as he can. What was a living, breathing human a moment ago is now a cold, lifeless corpse.

The man standing behind the prisoner, a correctional officer, lets out a breath he never knew he was holding. 

"Well. That's that," he says.

That's that.

 

The gravestone is small and unadorned, in a cemetery a few miles from the prison.

The ceremony is small, just a priest that says a few words, an attorney, a journalist, a prison officer. The family is there too, the siblings with the parents this time. The mother cries, the father hides his face, the siblings, grown up now, bury their grief deep.

The funeral ends in just half an hour, and everyone leaves. The priest gets back into a red car that seems overly expensive for a man of his occupation. The prison guard gets into a prison-issued car, dust flying from his wheels from the speed he drives away. The parents get into one car, the siblings into their own. The journalist snaps a picture of the grave, then leaves.

No one visits again. 

Only one person ever stops by the grave of Tyler Robert Joseph.

A boy with red hair and a solemn face deposits a single rose upon the even mound in front of the gravestone, and leaves.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not good at this.


End file.
